The NCAA came down as hard as I've seen in a while on Oklahoma today for the violations involving Bomar. They forfeit the entire 2005 season, when the players were actually receiving the funds and thus ineligible, and will lose scholarships, though the article doesn't yet say how many.

The articles all say they have to "forfeit" their eight wins, so I'm guessing that means all those teams they beat get the victory. Which doesn't have a huge impact on the overall title picture that year, but still.

As I was saying though, if they did this to OU, it would seem likely they would take away 2004 and 2005(well at least 2005) from USC which means no undefeated championship in 2004 and no undefeated regular season in 2005. Notre Dame fans would finally be able to get that win they felt robbed of by the "Bush Push".

The Sooners went 8-4 and beat Oregon in the Holiday Bowl to end the 2005 season. Records from that season involving quarterback Rhett Bomar and offensive lineman J.D. Quinn must be erased, the NCAA said, and coach Bob Stoops' career record will be amended to reflect the erased wins, dropping it from 86-19 in eight seasons to 78-19.

As of 2/28/05: 101 pounds since December 7, 2004OFFICIAL THREE-MONTH COUNT: 112 pounds on March 9, 2005OFFICIAL SIX-MONTH COUNT: 142 pounds on June 8, 2005OFFICIAL ONE YEAR COUNT: 187 pounds on December 7, 2005As of 2/27/06: 202 pounds "I've lost a heavyweight"As of 7/31/06: 224 pounds

This 'punishment' is an absolute joke. OU got caught redhanded with vintage 1980s Southwest Conference/SEC-style payments of thousands of dollars for work not done. And, the only real cost was two measly scholarships over two years. I think all the ADs and coaches at the big time schools (especially traditional powers who have been weaker than usual the past couple of years) just quietly told their big boosters to follow suit. I'm sorry, but this in no way shape or form constitutes a punishment. For something like this, there has to be at least a one year bowl and tv ban.

EDIT (inspired by odessasteps): Well, Stoops is right, as far as the fans, players and even opponents are concerned. The NCAA can take the wins from the record book, but that's really insignificant as no one cares about the NCAA's opinion concerning OU's 2005 football campaign. Unless I missed it, they didn't take any revenue from the team, plus whatever impact the season had on recruiting has already been felt. Again, aside from the paltry scholarship restrictions, this has no impact on OU.

I would argue that any penalty that addresses the past will not punish the program, the boosters or the university. Case in point--the OSU team that had their Final 4 appearance 'stripped' from them. What a joke. It happened; we all saw it. Taking it away on paper does not constitute any meaningful punishment.

(edited by Corajudo on 13.7.07 1624)"Teach children that they have great potential because they are human." -Warrior

I think J.R. mentioned on his blog that this means that a couple of walk-ons won't get free rides. Hard to tell if he was scoffing at the NCAA, or complaining. And he was quick to point out that no one on the team will be working for the just-opened "J.R.'s House of Hardcore BBQ" * restaurant.

Originally posted by CorajudoThis 'punishment' is an absolute joke...I'm sorry, but this in no way shape or form constitutes a punishment. For something like this, there has to be at least a one year bowl and tv ban.

I agree with you but the days of actual punishment for 'name' college teams are gone. There won't be any more SMUs, Alabamas, or Boston Colleges in the future. Ohio State has been doing far worse things than what Oklahoma did, and for a far greater period of time, but they aren't ever going to be touched. It's just the nature of the NCAA right now, they are basically Selig and Gang from the Steroid Era of the 90s. The NCAA won't risk losing the money and recognition and ratings and everything that a 'name' college brings, no matter how dirty and underhanded that college operates.

Yeah I've seen some typical stuff out of Ohio State, but certainly no worse than the other major schools so I'd like to know what's being referred to there as well.

Yes it's a weak punishment overall because it won't cost them anything real in the future. But it wasn't a prolonged thing made up of tons of players with coaches aware of it. It was two guys who screwed up. Now the coaches should have been paying more attention to know what was going on, but still. The punishment fits the crime here to me, though I would maybe give a one year bowl ban instead of two scholarships to drive the point home.

This isn't even close to what SMU was doing, so of course the punishment shouldn't be close to it either.

Originally posted by wmatisticThis isn't even close to what SMU was doing, so of course the punishment shouldn't be close to it either.

However, if you were to couple the actions of the Oklahoma football team with those of Oklahoma's basketball team when Sampson was the head coach, that sure screams out Lack of Institutional Control. And, Oklahoma football has not been pure as the driven snow historically.As for the 8-4 record: I'm sure Oklahoma fans want to forget a season where they only won 8 games and went to a non-BCS bowl during the Stoops era.

Originally posted by wmatisticThis isn't even close to what SMU was doing, so of course the punishment shouldn't be close to it either.

However, if you were to couple the actions of the Oklahoma football team with those of Oklahoma's basketball team when Sampson was the head coach, that sure screams out Lack of Institutional Control. And, Oklahoma football has not been pure as the driven snow historically.As for the 8-4 record: I'm sure Oklahoma fans want to forget a season where they only won 8 games and went to a non-BCS bowl during the Stoops era.

Funny reading this back the thought that immediately hit me is that I don't think OU fans are real high on remembering the seasons Stoops got them to a BCS bowls either.

Surprised by this reversal actually. Not sure how some schools seem to get off without trouble. The whole Bush and USC thing is still dead. Meyer recruits a dudes girlfriend to get to him and nothing happens. Colorado gives a kids mom a six figure job and not a word from the NCAA.

Meanwhile I have to deal with not the NCAA, but my own team FSU putting itself on probation, taking away several kids scholarships, and suspending half the damn team for four games basically because they, along with 500 of their classmates, were given the file for a test.

However, the school objected to the NCAA erasing its wins from the season when the players were on the team, claiming that it was unfair to punish teammates who didn't break the rules. Oklahoma also argued that the violations wouldn't have been detected without the school's own investigation.

"While we are pleased with the findings by the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee, we are most pleased for the 100 student athletes and coaches who played by the rules and worked their hearts out for a successful 2005 season," University President David Boren said in the statement.

The NCAA said in its news release that the "the university's cooperation was a significant factor in the ultimate determination of the violations," but the infractions committee did not acknowledge that in its decision.

"We fully appreciate and respect the process required in these matters," Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said in the statement. "We are pleased that the NCAA recognized the university's approach in taking immediate and significant action upon our discovery of the violations and of the work and cooperation of the University of Oklahoma in the ultimate detection of the violations."

The university said it would not make any further comment on the appeal.

So, if I'm reading this right, it was overturned because the punishment unfairly punished teammates who didn't break the rules. But didn't they benefit by having the ineligible players on the field?

Does this mean we won't see the canceling of games anymore if the university is good at uncovering improprieties, even though ineligible players are used?

Speaking of what happened to FSU. IIRC, players had access to an online (or take-home) test, right? They may or may not have cheated. Oklahoma has kids being paid for work they didn't do. It seems to me that either OK is getting off light, or FSU were to hard on themselves.

-- 2006 Time magazine Person of the Year --"Let me see if I can get inside his mouth." -- Michael Wilbon on PTI August 28, 2007

However, the school objected to the NCAA erasing its wins from the season when the players were on the team, claiming that it was unfair to punish teammates who didn't break the rules. Oklahoma also argued that the violations wouldn't have been detected without the school's own investigation.

"While we are pleased with the findings by the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee, we are most pleased for the 100 student athletes and coaches who played by the rules and worked their hearts out for a successful 2005 season," University President David Boren said in the statement.

The NCAA said in its news release that the "the university's cooperation was a significant factor in the ultimate determination of the violations," but the infractions committee did not acknowledge that in its decision.

"We fully appreciate and respect the process required in these matters," Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said in the statement. "We are pleased that the NCAA recognized the university's approach in taking immediate and significant action upon our discovery of the violations and of the work and cooperation of the University of Oklahoma in the ultimate detection of the violations."

The university said it would not make any further comment on the appeal.

So, if I'm reading this right, it was overturned because the punishment unfairly punished teammates who didn't break the rules. But didn't they benefit by having the ineligible players on the field?

Does this mean we won't see the canceling of games anymore if the university is good at uncovering improprieties, even though ineligible players are used?

Speaking of what happened to FSU. IIRC, players had access to an online (or take-home) test, right? They may or may not have cheated. Oklahoma has kids being paid for work they didn't do. It seems to me that either OK is getting off light, or FSU were to hard on themselves.

At FSU it was an online class in which over 500 students, many of them athletes, were given previous years copies of the test, which had not been changed in the five years since the class began. The test was allowed to be taken anywhere, with no supervision.

I'm pretty sure all of us that went to college had a course like that, in which we knew the teacher was lazy, got the file from upperclassman and used it to get the easy A, though for most it wasn't online and unsupervised.

Yes this was cheating. They had the answers. However it was clearly a university mistake and not anywhere close to just being a football team issue. I'm not really upset with what the punishment was by FSU, as they broke the rules and should suffer some punishment. And the ones who lied about it when found out should have harsher punishment(as it's believed those will be the ones to lose their scholarships).

FSU worked with the NCAA and wanted to make sure whatever punishment they handed out was good enough that the NCAA didn't feel the need to do more.

My problem with it, as I mentioned, is that other schools football programs, not schools, have done far more shady things and they didn't receive half the press of the FSU incident and the punishments were that either the NCAA didn't bother to even look or next to no one was punished in any meaningful way. I can't tell you how many articles I read about how Bowden had lost control of his program or about "lack of institutional control" over the football program. None of them mentioned the other 500 kids that did this or the details of what really went down. It's frustrating for sure.

In other words, I'm upset at the players who did this, because they had to know they specifically were under a microscope and it would hurt the program if noticed and it was cheating. But I'm more upset that the NCAA isn't being consistent or harsh enough in punishing real problems.

Look at what went on at Colorado, as has been printed lately. Why, when the NCAA looked so hard into new UCLA coach Rick's NCAA pool incident, were they not able to uncover all those other details we now know? And why wasn't the program punished as they should have been for all of that? And why aren't they looking into this new incident at all?

Why, when books and lawsuits have resulted from the Bush incident, has the NCAA done nothing?

Busted at closing time in a Houston nightclub for resisting arrest. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)) Now Houston police say (NFL.com) that AP may get off w/ just a small fine. But just to be safe, looks like he hired Roger Clemens' attorney.